Robot Helps People Walk Again

Six months after doctors told him he would likely never walk again after a random accident at home, 49-year-old Chris Tagatac was back on his feet and taking steps, a feat that elated not only him, but also his family.

"The first thing I remember when I stood up... my mom just put her hand to her mouth and had this look her face, like, 'Amazing, I can't believe my son is walking again,' " Tagatac told Design News. He took 52 steps that day, giving him hope that he could defy the odds and once again regain the same active life he had before he was left paralyzed last year.

Tagatac didn't accomplish this feat on his own, however. He was walking with the help of Ekso, a wearable robot from a company called Ekso Bionics that consists of braces, sensors, and motors that anticipate people's movements and take steps for them.

The Ekso wearable robot helps people who can’t move their lower body take steps by anticipating their movements and making them for them.

Ekso is just one of a number of innovations in robotics designed to help people who've suffered paralysis and other spinal-cord and lower-body injuries get back on their feet and walk. The military is also experimenting with similar technology as a way to unburden soldiers from heavy loads, and a company in Israel called Argo Medical Technologies has developed a machine, called ReWalk, with a similar aim to Ekso.

In fact, the research to develop the former is how Ekso developed. The company's founders came up with the idea for the robot from a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project to provide an exoskeleton to help soldiers carry very large loads. The trick was to develop technology that didn't use energy to carry the load, reserving it for other things, Nathan Harding, co-founder and chief project officer of Ekso Bionics, the manufacturer of the product, told us. "It's kind-of like the difference between a helicopter that's holding up the weight and using energy to do so and a table that's holding up the weight and using no energy to do so," he said.

Ekso engineers developed this technology in 2005 and later used it as the base to form their own company. While it's not this exact technology that's used in its wearable robot, Harding said the company did use the concept behind it to develop the robot that allows Tagatac and others walk in Ekso.

Moving muscles, not bones
Ekso's robot works by providing torque to people's joints at the knees, hips, and ankles. A patient moves into the device from a sitting position in a wheelchair, attaching braces made of aluminum, steel, titanium, and carbon fiber with Velcro to their legs and around their waist. Patients' feet go into bindings at the bottom similar to those on a snowboard, said Tagatac.

"People are incredibly resilient and can be trained to use artificial limbs and other types of walking mechanisms, especially if they have the right tools and technology to help them overcome this type of injury."

Yes, Elizebeth. With proper training and artificial limbs, they can lead a normal life and many of the peoples are doing like that.

Indeed, Mydesign, technology like what Ekso provides will definitely help people readjust to a normal life after a disability and hopefully also return to doing many of the things they did before they became disabled. People are incredibly resilient and can be trained to use artificial limbs and other types of walking mechanisms, especially if they have the right tools and technology to help them overcome this type of injury.

"Yes mydesign, think about the disable people at the war, how many are there with disability after doing the lot of sacrifice for their countries. How nice if they can walk and joined to the work force again. "

Pubudu, exactly. Recently I had seen a similar situation with a pet dog in one of my friend's house. For the dog, it's both back legs got paralyzed and not able to move. My friend had made similar leg like structure with cast iron and fixed it on its back bone. Now they are training the dog, how to walk with this artificial legs.

Thanks for sharing that link, Pubudu. As we've all shared, there are some amazing people who overcome physical adversity, and if technology can be invented to help them, then it's doing everyone a true service. And it's also nice that technology was the starting point for such a positive discussion about life and appreciating what things we take for granted, like the use of our limbs. I'll keep my eyes open for similar types of technology that's worthy of coverage.

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